Colorado residents chafing at the rapidly expanding oil and gas operations along the Front Range are pressuring their local governments for protection from industrial light, noise, vibration and pollution within city limits.

But state officials insist they alone have the right to regulate how and where the industry does its drilling. State attorneys are fighting local governments that try to impose their own rules.

This fuels a growing movement of residents wondering whether the local home-rule form of government established in Colorado's Constitution means no rule when it comes to oil and gas.

"The state has failed to protect us and is — in fact — acting on behalf of the oil-and-gas industry to try to ram hazardous drilling and fracking down our throats," said Dave Gardner, director of Colorado Springs Citizens for Community Rights.

Longmont was the first to be sued by the state's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission after the City Council passed tough rules including mandatory 750-foot buffers between wells and homes, and full disclosure by companies of chemicals they inject during the process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

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The outright ban on in-town drilling by Fort Collins' City Council last week was immediately called illegal by Gov. John Hickenlooper.

And when Arapahoe, Elbert and El Paso county commissioners began tweaking local rules, Attorney General John Suthers warned them that any rules controlling noise, lights, well location, harm to wildlife and impact on air and water will be pre-empted by the state.

On Tuesday, the City Council in Colorado Springs — worried that an existing rule limiting oil and gas drilling to agricultural zones puts their city in conflict with the state — is poised to pass new rules that sync with looser state rules while exerting some control over oil and gas truck traffic.

But a coalition of residents says the changes weaken local control and is demanding tougher protection.

"We want local control. People want the ability to ensure this won't affect their quality of life," former Colorado Springs City Councilman Richard Skorman said.

Suthers may argue that drilling in communities is not a purely local matter, Skorman said, "but it would be a local concern for him if a well was a couple hundred feet from his house. It just makes sense that we have the ability to make our own decisions."

The Colorado Constitution gives residents of home-rule cities, where voters have approved special charters, "the full right of self government in local and municipal matters."

Courts have decided, however, that state Oil and Gas Conservation Commission rules pre-empt local rules when a state interest is at stake — which has been defined to include orderly production of oil and gas. Underground minerals often are owned by somebody other than the surface landowner.

In 1992, Colorado's Supreme Court struck down a ban on drilling in Greeley. That case set up a process in which courts analyze whether a local land-use rule gets too much in the way of the state interest. If not, the local rule is permissible.

The Colorado Court of Appeals decided, in 2002, that local rules in the town of Frederick for well setbacks, noise abatement and visual impacts were not permissible.

So what does home-rule authority allow? Does Colorado Springs' existing rule that confines mining to agricultural zones mean the city could be sued by the state for prohibiting drilling in neighborhoods?

"These are questions that will be decided by the courts," attorney general spokeswoman Carolyn Tyler said, declining to comment further.

Home-rule champions point to a tradition of letting locals call the shots when it comes to land use on their turf.

Local governments are "best-positioned," and they regularly negotiate effectively with oil and gas companies, Colorado Municipal League general counsel Geoff Wilson said.

"Are locals completely foreclosed from regulating well setbacks in any way? I don't think so. We have a traditional land-use power that includes the authority to look at the proximity of wells to other land uses in the jurisdiction," Wilson said. "And I don't buy the notion that local regulation of oil and gas in Colorado has had any measurable adverse impact on oil and gas production. This industry is doing better than ever in making more money, poking more holes."

The anti-fracking activists that local governments face increasingly coordinate statewide and draw support from national networks. Some are motivated by climate change, opposing drilling because they want to force a shift to reliance on renewable wind and solar power. Others are motivated to protect landowners' property rights.

Local governments in Loveland, Lafayette and elsewhere are developing local rules that could lock in protection as the industry prepares to drill thousands more wells.

"In some ways, it is becoming a debate around who is in charge of energy policy. Is it the marketplace? Or the government? Well, the future of electricity generation is going to be natural gas," said Stan Dempsey, president of the Colorado Petroleum Association.

"There's a segment of the population we aren't going to be able to communicate with well, and they are very, very vocal," Dempsey said. "I don't think they're a very large section of the population."

Since 2008, municipalities have been directed to use state-trained local-government designees to carry residents' concerns to the oil-and-gas commissioners, who can attach conditions to drilling permits.

But local interest in oil and gas is broadening. Denver residents packed an informational meeting about hydraulic fracturing held last month by state Rep. Beth McCann, D-Denver. She's holding another Wednesday evening.

Even in pro-business, heavily Republican Colorado Springs, council members are compelled to think carefully about balancing energy-industry and other economic interests.

Colorado Springs' local-government designee recently reported to the council that the oil-and-gas industry could bring big jobs and investment. However, Colorado Springs long has benefited from steady tourism, which yields more jobs than oil and gas, City Council administrator Aimee Cox said.

"So there's a real sensitivity if we lose our natural environment," she said.

And if residents of Colorado Springs — "not a green, Boulderesque community" — develop a passion for local control over drilling, said Skorman, who ran for mayor in 2011, "then people can do it anywhere."

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